He just wished he’d realised the truth before destroying her life. How he would live with the guilt, he did not know.
Throat moving hard, chin wobbling, she rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands then blew out a long puff of air. ‘You don’t know what that means to me.’
He could see what it meant.
Their eyes locked. Familiar, dangerous emotion fisted inside him. Trapped with only Claudia, he’d found himself staring at her too many times with a thudding heart and arousal coiling in his loins...and caught her staring back at him too many times to deny any longer that something was happening between them.
Under the soft lighting, he saw the flush cover her face before she looked away and murmured, ‘I should get to bed.’
The dangerous feelings raging through him grew as she walked softly to him. She leaned down to pick up his empty mug. The fabric from her top brushed against his arm. Her scent swirled in his senses and that was the moment his hand took control and decided this was not something he could fight any longer.
He caught her loose plait and gently closed his fingers around it.
Time became suspended in the moment it took for her to turn her face towards him. Her chest rose and fell in short, ragged bursts and when those beautiful doe-like eyes locked onto his...
He lost the ability to breathe.
Claudia found herself caught. Trapped. Not in Ciro’s light hold of her plait but in the weight of emotions pulsing from his eyes.
Her chest tightened and squeezed the air from her lungs. He slowly dragged his fingers to the base of the plait then released it to brush his fingers up her spine to her shoulder. Thrills raced through her. Every nerve ending in her body tingled in heightened anticipation of what he would do next.
He cupped the nape of her neck and gently pulled her to him.
Her heart thumped too hard for any other sound to penetrate. The ache she carried for him became a pulse of need that throbbed and swelled deep inside her. Ciro’s breath swirled lightly over her lips and she closed her eyes to savour the sensation and its chocolatey warmth.
Her concentration had been shot since that moment in the bathroom when she’d been certain he was going to kiss her. She’d cooked and baked manically but her mind kept drifting back to their wedding night, her body reawakening to the memories with a vengeance that kept her short of breath. Everything she’d done and said since their almost-kiss had been with a heated weight in her pelvis and a fizz in her veins. Every time their eyes locked she’d felt such need rip through her that she’d had to hold onto something to stop her weakened legs swaying.
The hand not cupping her neck flattened against her cheek. His ragged breaths grew hotter and hotter against her tingling mouth until the firmness of his lips pressed against hers and every cell in her body melted.
His kiss was slow. Incredibly slow. Sensuous. An exploration. An erotic fusion that sent dizzying thrills soaring through her. One hand massaged her neck, the other caressed her cheek before gliding down her arm and winding across her back.
He pulled back to gaze into her eyes. There was pain in the green depths but it was a pain she understood, a pain she shared. It was the pain of a desire grown so big it could no longer be contained. A groan vibrated through his powerful chest and with one effortless tug, he pulled her onto his lap and sealed their bodies together. And then he devoured her mouth with the hunger of a starving man.
Oh, but this kiss was everything.
Claudia had been raised to believe only men craved sex and that women endured it. Her attraction to Ciro had been instant, there right from the start, but she’d been too frightened of the act itself to imagine it with anything but a broad brush. She’d hungered for Ciro but not for sex... Not until she’d spent the most magical night of her life with him. Everything she’d discovered only hours later had shattered her innocence more than the deed itself, but the memories of that time with him had refused to die.
Ciro had ignited a fire in her belly. Attempts to dampen it had come to nothing. The long nights sharing a bed with him, aching for his touch, longing for the magic that had made her one and only time with him so incredible had made her hunger for him turn into its own life force. She craved him. She ached for his touch, yearned to experience the wonder of it again without fear and simply enjoy the incredible sensations he roused in her and the closeness they’d shared.
Chests fused together, their mouths moved at a ferocious tempo. Ciro’s hands roved everywhere, sweeping over her back and down her sides, over her thighs, cupping her bottom and then moving back up to tug her hairband off and throw it to one side. His fingers worked quickly to undo the plait and then ran through her hair until it fell like a sheet over them both and he turned his face to inhale its scent.
Holding her securely, he lay back on the recliner, taking her with him until she was straddling him and their lips locked together again. Claudia kissed him with all the passion contained in her soul and then she kissed his neck, marvelling at the strength of it, the woody scent and smoothness of his skin, before finding his mouth again and melting into more of their erotic lip-play. While their mouths and tongues danced their seductive duel, Ciro lifted her top up. Somehow she managed to free her arms without having to move her mouth from his but to get it over her head meant breaking the lock. She shifted her position so her weight wasn’t on his burn...and immediately felt the hardness of his erection right there between her legs. The pulse that tore through her was so powerful that she had no control of the moan that flew from her mouth.
Dazed, she reared back to stare into his eyes again, needing to see as well as feel that these dizzying feelings weren’t hers alone. It felt as if her heart could beat right out of her chest.
He reached an arm up to rub the backs of his fingers down her cheek, his voice hoarse as he said, ‘What are you doing to me?’
She had no idea what he was talking about.
He must have understood her ignorance. He cupped her cheeks and pulled her down so the tips of their noses touched. ‘I have never wanted anyone the way I want you.’
The potency of his words was thrillingly immediate. She kissed him. ‘I’ve never wanted anyone. Only you.’
Ciro’s heart swelled with the same force as the swelling in his loins. Never had he wanted to possess someone the way he wanted to possess Claudia. He didn’t want to have sex with her. He didn’t even want to make love to her. He wanted to be as one with her, something he didn’t even pretend to try and understand, just knew in that moment that that was how he felt.
‘Take your top off,’ he said thickly, then found the rest of him thickening too when she whipped it over her head and threw it onto the floor.
Her plain white bra tugged at his heart. They’d made love once before but in many ways Claudia was still an innocent with no clue as to the power she held in her sensual body.
She had power over him. That much he knew for certain. If someone told him right then that to take possession of Claudia meant he lost everything else, he would lose it all gladly.
He unclasped the bra and her beautiful, generous breasts spilled free. Lifting his head, he took one nipple into his mouth and was gratified to hear her moan of pleasure. She ground onto him but there was no relief, only further torture. Never in his whole life had he needed to be inside someone the way he needed to be inside Claudia.
The same urgency was in her too. He could feel it in her every touch and kiss and in the way she scratched at his T-shirt. Arching his back, he helped her remove it and then tugged his shorts down to free his erection from its constraints. Her arms wound around his neck, their chests fused back together, and she ground down on him with even more urgency. ‘Ciro, please. I want...’ Her words died on her lips as another moan fell in their place.
He rubbed his hands over her back and down to her bottom. Slipping his hand under her skirt, he groaned as he clasped the peachi
ness.
Her face, flushed with passion, hovered over his, her breaths short gasps. ‘Ciro. Please.’
The only barrier between them now was her knickers. With her pleas for possession ringing in his ears and the feeling that he could spontaneously combust at any moment he wound them as tightly as he could and then ripped them apart.
He didn’t know if he thrust up or if Claudia ground down or if it was a combination of both but the second that last barrier between them was gone, he was inside her tight, wet confines and fighting harder than he had ever done before to stop an instant climax.
Gritting his teeth, he wrapped an arm around her waist and clasped her bottom with the other hand, then held on for dear life as she began to move in earnest. That she was moving on instinct only made it more potent.
Her moans grew loader as she rode him, mouth on his cheek, her breasts crushed against his chest. Ciro did everything he could to hold on but this was too much, the sensations ripping through him were just too much, he was clinging by his fingertips... But then the tone of her moans became a breathy pitch and he felt her thicken around his raging arousal. Wrapping his arms even more tightly around her, he thrust up one last time and, with a loud shout that roared from deep in his chest, let go.
Claudia, dazed and utterly spent, finally loosened her hold around Ciro’s neck and nuzzled into the crook. His woody scent had a new musky hue to it and she sniffed it with a sigh and rested her hand on his shoulder, closing her eyes to the gentle but no less potent sensations penetrating her skin as he stroked her back. Their chests were bonded so tightly together she could feel his heart beating in tandem with her own.
‘Is your thigh okay?’ she murmured.
He pressed his mouth to the top of her head and strengthened his hold around her.
Slowly, she drifted to sleep, waking only when he shifted beneath her. She lifted her head and found him staring at her with a look that made her heart soar.
‘Ready to go to bed now?’ he asked, his voice husky, before he pulled her down for a long, lingering kiss.
That kiss, more even than the earth-shattering pleasure of his lovemaking, made her feel that her world had changed for ever.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CLAUDIA CREPT THROUGH the darkness to her dressing room and donned the first items of clothing that came to hand before slipping out of the bedroom and calling her sister. She had a good excuse to call but what she really wanted—needed—was to hear Imma’s voice.
A night of making love to Ciro had left her as confused and out-of-sorts as she’d ever been.
It had been wonderful. Magical. Heavenly.
And yet all she wanted was to curl herself into a ball and bawl her eyes out.
She was not supposed to sleep with him. That had never been part of their agreement.
But, sweet Lord, it had felt so right. At least it had until Ciro had fallen asleep and her chest had started to tighten around her thudding heart. The spacious walls of the apartment felt as if they were closing in on her.
Her feelings for him were veering dangerously out of control. Somehow she had to find a way to lock them away because they could never have a future together as anything other than co-parents.
So she did the only thing she could when her feelings felt as if they might explode inside her. She baked.
* * *
Even before Ciro heard Claudia’s voice, he knew she’d slipped out of bed. Only the faintest light filtered through the curtains. He squinted at his watch. Five a.m. He couldn’t have been asleep for more than an hour. Yawning widely, he debated getting up, tracking her down and carrying her back to bed for another bout of lovemaking.
He’d never known a night like it.
But his exhaustion was such that when Ciro next opened his eyes he found he’d slept for another two hours. The bed was still empty.
He climbed out and got straight into the shower.
He lathered shampoo into his hair, the full weight of what he’d done to her sitting heavily in him. He’d stolen her innocence. He’d lied to her. Used her. Got her pregnant. And now they’d made love again.
Never had he had sex with a woman and felt as if the fabric holding him together were fraying at the seams. And now it had happened twice. Both times with the same woman. And this time the fraying was a hundred times worse.
He’d just shared the best night of his life with the woman whose father’s actions had directly caused his own father’s great heart to collapse. He knew that was nothing to do with her; that she was as big a victim as anyone—maybe the biggest victim of all—but that didn’t change the self-loathing that he could share such heady joy with his enemy’s daughter.
He just could not reconcile the warring parts inside him.
Shower done, he had a quick shave, then threw a shirt and some trousers on.
As he walked down the second flight of stairs he was greeted with the unmistakable aroma of baking. His steps faltered as childhood memories of waking to similar scents hit him. His mother had often made fresh pastries to feed her growing boys and devoted husband.
How he wished he’d appreciated all they’d done for him more, wished he hadn’t treated them as a twice-yearly obligation to be filled, always busy building his empire and experiencing life and assuming they would always be there.
He found Claudia washing her hands at the sink, wearing a knee-length emerald shirt dress, hair plaited, her legs and feet bare. She did not look like a woman who’d gone a whole night without sleep.
Her smile contained a touch of wariness, as did her murmured, ‘Good morning.’
Desire pulsed through him, strong and relentless, pounding through his veins in that one meeting of their eyes, his thoughts immediately flying to the image of her naked in his arms.
Wrenching his stare from her guarded gaze, he ran his fingers through his hair to stop them reaching for her. ‘I need to get to work.’
Her teeth razed her bottom lip, her next smile warier than the first. ‘When will you be back?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve got three meetings scheduled and a conference call with Paris.’
‘Would you like a bagel before you go?’ She nodded at a tray of bagels lined up on a cooling rack on the worktop he’d failed to notice when he’d walked into the kitchen because his attention had been so thoroughly caught by her. That explained the evocative aroma.
‘I’d better make it quick. My first meeting’s in half an hour.’
‘Smoked salmon and cream cheese?’
‘Sounds great.’
While she pulled two plates out of the cupboard and got busy preparing breakfast for them, he remembered hearing her voice when he’d first woken briefly. ‘Who were you talking to earlier?’
‘Imma.’
‘Is something wrong?’
She spread cream cheese over one half of each opened bagel. ‘The voice activation app on my phone’s stopped working. I needed a bagel recipe and I didn’t want to wake you.’
‘Did she read the recipe out to you?’
She nodded, layering the salmon above the cheese and then reaching for the black pepper grinder.
‘How does that work if you can’t write it down?’
‘I remembered it. I can’t read or write but I’ve taught myself to pay attention and retain information. Tell me a recipe once and I will remember it for ever. Read me a news article and I will remember it word for word.’ She picked up one of the plates and handed it to him.
No wonder she’d been able to recall the words Ciro had said to his brother that fateful morning verbatim, he thought.
‘Can you read anything?’ he asked after he’d taken his first bite of what was easily the most delicious bagel he’d had in his life.
‘My name, Imma’s name, Papà and our surname. I struggle with Cesare but given enough time I can make it out.�
�� A blush that went all the way to the roots of her hair covered her face. ‘I can read your name too.’
That should not make his heart thump.
‘How come you were only recently diagnosed? Surely a condition as severe as yours should have been picked up years ago?’
‘I’ve not had a formal diagnosis,’ she explained. ‘I talked to Sister Maria when I stayed at the convent recently. She was my first teacher. She told me they—the nuns—suspected I was dyslexic when I was six. They told my father but he hit the roof at the suggestion his princess might have something wrong with her. They did their best to help me but were too scared of him to fight my corner.’
‘But surely your father must have realised you needed help? He must have read your school reports. Hell, all he had to do was compare your work to your sister’s.’
The first hint of bitterness flashed over her face. ‘I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I think having a stupid daughter suited him. He never got the son he wanted so he made Imma his business heir—she got all the brains—and decided I was more suited for being a decorative pet around the house. It’s not like I was going to go off and forge a career, was it? I mean, come on, Ciro, who’s going to employ someone who can’t read or write and struggles with numbers?’
‘You have a problem with numbers too?’
‘I can see them individually, although I get my twos and fives muddled up, but put two numbers together and I can’t see them. When I was little I wanted to work in my favourite pastry shop but when I asked them once—I couldn’t have been more than ten—they said it involved more than just baking. I would have to do things like work the tills and stocktakes and write orders down. All the things I can’t do.’
The thump in his heart now echoed violently in his guts as he remembered accusing her of wilfully signing her section of the transferred deed into her name. What had he said? Something about how she should have noticed the pathetically low sale price of it? Claudia would remember the exact words he’d used.
A Baby to Bind His Innocent Page 12
